Carnival in the Cayman Islands is guaranteed to be awash with color—but this year, with the help of stylist Marika-Ella Ames and local hotel Palm Heights, the fashion on parade reached heady new heights. Blow-up neon wings, hand-slashed T-shirts falling off the body, and foraged palm leaves expertly crafted into couture carnival-wear made up just a selection of the designs on show.
For Gabriella Khalil, founder and creative director of Palm Heights, carnival is an opportunity to bring fresh eyes to the island. An authority on contemporary art and fashion, Khalil tapped Ames to bring a dynamic and diverse roster of designers on board. Centering on the theme of ‘rebirth’, the brief was to consider this year’s carnival as a stylish new beginning, and a moment for regeneration.
Ames, who has styled editorials for System, Dazed, and The Face, as well as campaigns for Louisa Ballou and Jawara Alleyne, brought a unique perspective on Caribbean culture to the table. Her Jamaican heritage and keen eye for the island’s natural beauty made the process instinctive. “The concept of rebirth is a big theme in carnival,” she says, “because it’s quite a spiritual practice. Everyone comes, they shed their usual day to day and take on a new exciting adventure.”
The stylist asked designers from London, Norway, New York, and Brazil to join her. “They came out four days before the guests and were making things as we were there. We were creating together, which was incredible.” During fittings, Brazilian designer Labo Young—currently an artist-in-residence at Palm Heights—took his knife to the bushes to forage plants, before creating and constructing garments directly on carnival attendees.
“In the Amazon, where I live, I feel that the Caribbean has a strong influence—on our music for example, something that really makes my body pulsate,” says Young. “The hot and humid climate is full of water that creates a connection with the body. The plants are also in this same context: how they form around the body and tell a story.”
The storytelling element was key for both Palm Heights and Ames, who assigned each of the designers a micro theme to work within. Fredrik Tjærandsen, the Norwegian designer whose giant balloon dresses achieved viral status at his Central Saint Martins graduate show in 2019, considered the phoenix; “exploring how the human body can metaphorically embody its transformative nature,” in his words. “Fredrik had different pumps, and was inflating these huge latex pieces,” Ames explains. “He also does choreography, so a lot of his pieces are designed to move.”
While collaboratively developing a language and story for each item, Ames also encouraged the designers to step outside of their comfort zones. “Most of the designers had never made pieces to be worn for a carnival, so functionality in the Caribbean heat and theatrical elements of movement and performance were at the forefront of our conversations,” she adds.
Fashion East alumnus Jawara Alleyne responded to the elements by designing on-the-go during the carnival itself, as over a thousand people marched and danced down Cayman’s seven mile walk. “We even had to slash some T-shirts while on the road with a pocket knife because it was so hot and even more freedom was required,” the designer, who is from Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, says. “Slashing in and of itself is a technique intertwined with the DIY nature of carnival. To me, it’s the ultimate punk reference. The idea of rework and reconstruction to tell a story or fulfill a new purpose is an important lesson of carnival. It’s a theory that finds its way seeping into other aspects of Caribbean lifestyle art and culture and I think the world can learn a lot from, especially in this era of sustainable discourse.”
Working closely alongside Ames and Palm Heights, designers Theophilio, Max Brewer, Yasmina Atta, and Fey Fey Worldwide also created custom looks that spoke to the ‘rebirth’ theme. Each outfit also served as a meditation on the global cultural impact of carnival and, as Ames explains, “a revolt against carnival’s global surge towards pretty mas or ‘bikini and bead.’”
To nourish their creativity and spark a dialogue with the local community, the recent celebrations also came with a healthy dose of hedonism. Kicking things off was a supper club at which fruit chow, doubles, empanadas, oxtail stew, jerk chicken and more were served, while the weekend also saw London-based life drawing collective SketchSesh host a workshop.
On the day itself, Palm Heights’ two floats manifested the artistic visions of New York’s Raul De Nieves and Nigerian sound installation artist Emeka Ogboh, as curated by Zoe Lukov. Dressed in the finery Ames brought to the island, the Palm Heights band twerked their way to Mambo Italiano at Paradise Pizza and a private after party that carried on late into the night—taking the roots of carnival and turning them into an immersive work of fashion theater.
